Washington Gardener Magazine is the publication for MD, DC & VA area gardeners.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Winter Chores

Last Friday was a decent day to work outside -- in the 50s and hardly any wind. So local gardening man for hire, Dan (pictured here trimmed up one of my variegated euonymous bushes), and I tackled the jungle in my back garden and tamed most of it. I cleaned out the pond and discovered two "floater" goldfish -- RIP. Dan cut my wisteria down to a 3-ft nub and I plan on training it as a standard (i.e. small tree form). I planted another 100+ bulbs that arrived last week as a gift from Brent & Becky's. We rescued my arbor that the wisteria was twisting and crippling. It is now moved to the front yard garden. Dan raked up piles of Oak leaves. This was after I'd already done one thorough raking out for curbside pick-up in November. We bagged up most of the leaves, but added another 6ft x 10ft pile to my compost corner as well. It should go down a bit in volume over the winter, but it will take a couple years to be usable as compost. Dan hacked back most of my roses and other shrubs. I trimmed my flowering plum and crabapple trees a bit too. Not exactly the right time of year for this pruning, but like our former Governor-- they desperately needed a good haircut! I still have much to do -- a pile of compost/mulch in my driveway to spread on all my front and side yard beds, a living Christmas tree (blue spruce) to harden off and transplant outside, still more leaves to rake from my side yard, a potting bench I have yet to put together (18 months and counting!), and much, much more. It was a good 7 hour day of work though and my back area beds have never looked so spic and span. :-)